Tag Archives: individual difference

deschooling, Education and Language Instruction, Education and the Family, Literacy, Schools

The Importance of Recognizing Student Difference

Last night I watched the film, Shine Like a Star on YouTube.  The setting for the film was in India; in some Indian schools, with class sizes of 40 plus students. The main character was an eight-year-old boy called Ishan.  Ishan was portrayed as having dyslexia, and because he could not read and write, and didn’t have fine and gross motor coordination, he experienced bullying from teachers and fellow students, and rejection by his family.

The theme of the movie was individual difference in students.  With the right kind of support, and feeding of passion, all students are able to be an expert in something.

In the movie, Ishan’s solution was found in the context of school.  However, for me, the film highlighted the harmfulness of schools and schooling – just like in a school of fish, the individual is expected to be the same as every other member of the collective.  However, egalitarianism is a myth.  None of us are the same.  Everyone is unique and created for a different purpose, and the uniqueness requires difference in educational input.  Home-based education would have been a much better solution for the young lad’s situation.

Another issue was the child’s need for a multi-sensory / multi-modal approach to literacy and numeracy.  It was a great advertisement for intensive phonics methods of literacy instruction.

I would thoroughly recommend the watching of the movie.  You have to persevere through some Bollywood-like scenes (it is an Indian movie, when all said and done), but the perseverance is worth it.

References:

Aamir Khan Productions / PVR Pictures. (2013). Verry Inspiring Movie (Shine Like a Star). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22xmvxGtx4o

 

Advertisement
Standard
deschooling, Socialization

… vive la difference …

In the book, The Twelve Year Sentence: Radical Views of Compulsory Schooling, edited by William F. Rickenbacker (1974),  H. George Resch, in his chapter ‘Human Variations and Individuality’ points out that human equality is a myth.  There is nothing equal about any of us, other than our equal responsibility to live righteously before the law.

From the minutiae of our DNA, to the macro details of our body shape, emotional responses, mental capacities, preferences, gifts and motivations; the total combination of who we actually are is completely unique from everyone else who has existed, and ever will exist.

Our uniqueness makes mass education an impossibility.  It is just not possible to cater for all the educational, emotional and relational needs of all the children in a classroom.  The expectation placed on teachers to do so is an unreasonable expectation, and in many cases causes stress for the teacher who is failing to rise to the expectation, and the students who are not having their needs met.

One of my respondents stated that, “… some children need the read / write version of instruction.   However, it is a challenge to children who are not wired that way.  Different families can cater in different ways for the differences in their children.  They can provide a certain kind of education for those children academically-oriented, and give a life-oriented education for those children who are that way inclined.  Parents can cater for the different needs of each of the children.”

Parents who are giving their children educational opportunities in the midst of everyday family life, can guide each of their children into tasks and projects and research assignments that cater for the particular learning style, interest and capacities of that particular child.  In a classroom you are not living life, you are creating an artificial hothouse, and every situation has to be planned and prepared for.  However, not everyone will be catered for, so boredom, frustration and anti-learning elements will be introduced into the classroom, which will draw the teacher’s energies and attention away from the students who are interested and do want to learn.

Long live the differences in humanity.  However, the socializing agenda (i.e. indoctrination into socialism) of schools militates against such differences.  Only home-based unschooling can properly recognize, feed and cause to flourish the uniqueness of each person in the family.

Standard